


blessed and cursed and won.

by cereal



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-26
Updated: 2019-04-26
Packaged: 2020-02-04 13:13:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18605230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cereal/pseuds/cereal
Summary: She knows what his cock looks like, is the thing.(Elongating the timeline of 'A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms' just a bit, between the fireside and the start of the battle. Just enough extra time for, well, the rating on this fic.)





	blessed and cursed and won.

**Author's Note:**

> According to AO3, I haven't posted a fic in two years and two weeks to the day, and if someone told me, when posting that last fic, that the next one would be for Game of Thrones, I...don't know what I'd have said, but here we are. These two goobers are in love, and I want to think about it a lot. 
> 
> Title from Smashing Pumpkins’ ‘Muzzle.’

She knows what his cock looks like, is the thing.

She knows what his cock looks like and she has a reasonably well-informed idea of how he might use it to make her...

...to make her...

...what, exactly?

Scream, perhaps? Find pleasure?

Fall more stupidly and futilely under his spell, more like.

She’s not so innocent as to misconstrue what exactly it means — or _can_ mean — when a man and a woman lie together.

There’s a difference, though, between whatever this would be, _could_ be and the rough fucks she’s watched men pay for over and over again, men away from their wives, men looking for a wife, men looking for a respite, too often their last, from the fighting.

But she — she’s fought her whole life, fought _constantly_ — not just on the battlefield, sword in her hand and metal heavy on her body, but in every place she’s ever been, at every moment, every blessed and every cursed breath.

And she fought him — she _fights_ him — too, in senses both traditional and nontraditional.

It’s not the fight that she’s wary of — it’s the unknowable end of it.

Death is an ending, to be sure, and it brings with it its own set of questions, but it’s still familiar to her. She needn’t worry about the meaning of death, because death means she can no longer worry.

This — this whatever it is with Jaime — it’s not about death at all, but about living, and how she has never lived for anything but the cause, anything but honor and what is right.

Or, well, she hasn’t before.

But it’s not before anymore, it’s now — now that the very thing they fight is an army of the dead.

Now, nearly now, tomorrow there could be no more causes and honor, no more of the right thing, because it’s truly and horrifically possible that the only thing left when it’s all said and done is _wrong_.

But Jaime — Jaime _bleeding_ Lannister, right now, sitting in front of the fireplace with his brother, somehow, perhaps, feels something like _right_.

&&.

At first, she's confident that whatever this most recent hour of her life was, it's surely something the Seven themselves had a hand in.

But the more she thinks about it, back in her assigned room, walls dark and air cold, it begins to feel all the more human, a hand indeed, but Jaime's hand, callused and rough and still the slightest bit unsteady.

Jaime did this, Jaime made her a _knight_ , and she's never felt so proud, so full and light — a feeling she couldn't possibly have anticipated hours before the worst battle any of them have ever seen.

It feels like something new, and if they’re all going to march to their deaths in the morning, it’s both a blessing and a curse.

A beautiful note to end on — she’ll die a knight — a **_knight_**! — but also a taste of what could’ve been, with Jaime.

She’s carried this around, molten steel, spilled and replenished, messy and hot, waiting to become _something_ , something so much stronger than it was before.

And if this is an end, if this is _the_ end, no man or woman in any kingdom would blame her for seeking strength.

It’s strategic then, she tells herself, as her feet push her to the door, as she walks the markedly brief length of corridor toward the entrance to Jaime’s assigned chambers.

(Her queen had insisted on these logistics, she’s certain. If Brienne was willing to vouch for Jaime, she would be reminded in every possible manner, including proximity, of her choice.)

His door is shut, and for a moment she wonders if he’d even bothered leaving the fireside.

He’d seemed at peace there, and as Pod had sung about ghosts, she’d thought not of her own, not of Renly or Catelyn Stark, but of those that must haunt Jaime, and how, finally, tonight, for a few hours at least, he may have been free of them, or nearly.

Accepted by a motley crew who at one time or another may have spit on his grave, now willing to go to their own beside him.

But no, she can hear him inside, the muted puttering of a person unable to rest, the same routine she’d been performing herself, though whether she or the battle is causing his own unrest she couldn’t say.

(And though her mind is here now, she’d run through her drills thrice before she’d even allowed herself a moment’s thought of any of it, and she still stands in her armor, Oathkeeper at her hip.)

With a forceful straightening of her spine, she squares off her shoulders, and knocks on the worn wood separating her from Jaime.

His voice answers near immediately, before her hand has even retreated, the heightened awareness of the battle-ready serving as another grounding reminder of just who the man she seeks is.

Ser Jaime Lannister.

Kingslayer.

Kings _guard_.

Friend.

More?

It wasn’t clear what exactly he’d said at her knock, but it had sounded like an invitation to enter, and so she does, pushing the door open with deliberate care to the sound of a sword being sheathed.

“My lady,” he says with a slight bow of his head, and then smiles slightly. “ _Ser_ Brienne.”

“Is it truly — _Ser_? Or is there some other word?” she questions, partly because she’s curious, and partly because this feels familiar, starting a conversation in the middle has often been their way.

“You’re the first. It’s whatever you wish it.”

She watches as he moves toward the table in the room, a forced casual manner to his actions that truly only draws more attention to them, and it’s then that she sees why — his golden hand lies near a carafe.

Without intending to, her eyes snap to his right arm, the blunt end of his wrist just barely visible from his sleeve, which serves to make him move faster, and her to intervene.

“Please, not on my behalf — if — if you’re more comfortable without, I’ll certainly not begrudge you that. Comfort will be hard to come by all too soon.”

Jaime looks uncertain, his left hand hovering in the air over the golden one.

“It doesn’t bother me,” she says abruptly, suddenly aware — _reminded_ — that he does seem to care for her opinion, for her own comfort, and that this very fact is what’s brought her here.

He deliberates for a moment, but ultimately leaves the hand, instead moving to pull a chair from the table for her to sit in, and following suit when she does.

“Would you like a drink?” He gestures toward the carafe. It’s a bit too dark for her to see what’s inside, one lone torch on the wall and a few scattered candles making the room feel much warmer than it has any right to be.

“It’s just an astonishingly weak ale,” he says when she hesitates. “I was, of course, being mindful of your earlier admonishment to young Podrick, but just couldn’t bring myself to seek out any goat’s milk.”

His teasing grimace makes it hard to block the memory of Tormund and his horn and his beard and his _story_ , and she smiles lightly in spite of herself.

“Two smiles from Brienne of Tarth in one evening, what could I possibly have done to warrant such favor?”

She hesitates, her stomach flipping at how quickly an opportunity to state her purpose here had arisen. She’s not a coward, decidedly _not_ a coward, but she will admit, in this moment, there’s something just a tiny bit...cowardly whispering in her blood.

But then, because it’s Jaime, Jaime who knew when she’d been about to sneeze before she did by the end of their previous travels, he gives her an out.

“And how many of your smiles has Old Giantsbane received?” His tone is jesting, light, and she’s grateful for it, for the few more moments she’ll allow herself before she...well, before she does _something_.

(And isn’t that novel? Newly knighted one moment and without a battle plan the next. Disgraceful.)

“I assure you, Ser Jamie, you’ve come first in that tourney, I believe Tormund may have received, oh, a wince, perhaps, in the length of our acquaintance?”

She realizes how silly it is to have something even as simple as a small joke seem like she’s giving away tremendous ground, but it’s truly an effort she’s never once thought to make, not in any earnest fashion anyway.

Trying to navigate it now, with someone as, well... _fair_ as Jaime Lannister, with any amount of charm was a battle over before it began.

In response, Jaime looks at her as if he’s searching for something, the way she’s noticed (and pointedly ignored) before, but this time she’s not sure which thing she hopes he finds.

There was a true, fond sincerity in her tone, a tone she rarely lets herself use, a tone she’s rarely had a _reason_ to use, and she’s sure Jaime heard it. Life at court, at Casterly Rock, in the Kingsguard, with Cersei at all — his ability to hear what wasn’t being said, to understand motivations and intentions, has been honed his whole life.

He knew what she was actually conveying, and had to be weighing, right at this moment, whether he should pursue that route, or the one where he tossed an easy jibe back and let their patter take them straight through to the start of the fighting.

It’s such a dereliction of duties already to be here, to not be ready and focused and rested at any moment, and part of her feels if she’s come this far, she may as well see it through.

Another part feels the way Pod looked anytime she’d allow him loose in a tavern, flushed and woolly-headed and perhaps a little bit in love.

(Of course, Jaime wasn’t a dark-haired tavern maid with shapely breasts, but — still.)

The final part of her is calculating the strategies of a swift retreat — it’s too big of a gamble, would cost her too much, she needs to retreat, she needs —

“I’m glad to hear it, of course,” Jaime says, and she feels her breathing hitch, anticipating the next part. Would he help her retreat or would he force her to confront this...friendship of theirs? “It’s unsettling enough to know that Tormund could probably best me with a sword at this point in things,” — he lifts up his right arm — “to know he’d also won your heart would be far too much to bear.”

He smiles at her then, teasing and sparkling, the innuendo of when they first met, made fonder, more tender.

Just as hers had, his words could be an admission or silliness, walking the edge of the sword without tipping one way or another, and she’s gripped with the urge to strike first.

Her body feels suddenly as if this is a competition, a training exercise, her muscles tensing with the need to outfox Jamie and _win_ — she isn’t sure of the prize, but it feels worth wanting.

It would be easy in combat, a rhythm engrained in her since she was young, an idea of how to strike and a strong guess as to how her opponent would respond.

This, though, she’s never trained for this, has never been _here_ , and so she tries to get her bearings, tries, perhaps, to unsettle his.

“No, Tormund hasn’t won my heart,” she says, carefully, and the sight of Jaime’s face, the...hope? Yes, hope, painted there, emboldens her to continue. “My heart may —”

Jaime leans forward in his chair, facing each other as they are, his knees are nearly brushing hers, she hadn’t realized they were situated quite so close. Even through all the layers they both wear, even through the bitter cold outside, a warmth blooms under her skin and her voice falters, trailing off.

“Your heart may what?” he prompts, tone soft, but sure. Where her courage has all but deserted her, he seems to have found his.

(Though, she must admit, she thinks it was gone before, on the training field — she would swear that he’d meant to say something other than battle logistics.)

Again, her mind processes this as a challenge to be won, if Jaime isn’t afraid — not of this at least, to say nothing of the horrors they’ll face all too soon — she won’t be either.

With every bit of nerve she has, with her spine as steeled and straight as Oathkeeper, she answers, “My heart may not be entirely on offer.”

At this, Jaime visibly deflates and she hears something like a roaring in her ears, had she misread this all so badly?

“Ah, yes, I’d forgotten myself for a moment, a knight’s heart belongs to his — her — _their_ queen, of course.”

Oh, for the love of the Seven — they’re an odd pair for certain.

“No,” she says, feeling bolder with every passing moment, with every howl of wind outside bringing them closer to their fates. “This knight’s heart,  _my_ heart, is...perhaps...already spoken for by another?”

She winces at the way her voice goes up at the end, the sentence becoming a question instead of the certainty she knows it is.

“Is that so? And who does it belong to?”

He meets her gaze steadily, his hand slipping across the expanse of their thighs to brush against her knee, so light she couldn’t possibly feel it through the layers between them, but her skin pricks just the same.

It’s a gesture full of meaning, but there’s a whisper in her ear, all the things she’s heard her whole life, about what she looks like, who she is, this sort of thing is not meant for her — even if she might have wanted it, wants it _now_ , and she’s suddenly up and out of her chair, standing on shaky legs.

Jaime, though, whether through muscle memory or courtesy or something else entirely, pops out of his chair only a half-moment behind, bringing them face to face once more.

“Brienne —”

She doesn’t want to hear it, any of it, the dead march ever closer and she just — she wants —

“It’s yours, you complete and utter —”

Her words are swallowed, perhaps literally _swallowed_ , as Jaime’s mouth meets her own.

She’s had kisses before, been kissed though she didn’t wish it, suffered charades for some cause or another, but this is entirely different, this is welcome and warm and _everything_.

Without thinking, she kisses him back, surprised to find how quickly she adapts.

It’s a soft press of their lips at first, just the slightest movements against one another, and though her frame is large, she’s learned how to control it, how to be aware of every single bit of it, which is why she’s again surprised to realize that she’s somehow fit one hand around the back of his neck and the other against his cheek.

There’s the wiry softness of his short beard, the unfair softness of the hair at the nape of his neck and the — _oh_ — the feel of his left hand curling around her waist, the bluntness of his right set firm and low against her hip.

Before doubt can creep in, before she can consider that he’s likely never had to angle his neck _upward_ to get a kiss, she feels his tongue touch lightly to her lips, a brief glance of a touch, but enough to make her own lips part, as if on reflex.

His tongue slips into her mouth in the space of a single second and she meets it with her own, the warm-wet feel of this sort of kiss entirely new and entirely welcome.

The hair on his face is tickling her skin, but she doesn’t mind, allowing him to reposition their mouths, kiss her deeper, his tongue working in a rhythm that sends heat low in her belly and between her legs.

He shifts forward even further, pulling her in tighter, bringing their bodies closer together, and she can feel the hilts of each of their swords as they press against the thick padding of their armor.

It’s always been deliberate, her preference for her armor over any other wardrobe, but at this moment, she resents it, wishes it gone, and as Jaime’s fist curls underneath her sword belt and tugs, it’s clear he feels the same.

She’s at complete odds with herself, her responsibility to the impending battle at war with her desire to be closer to Jaime.

She has always, _always_ chosen what is right, but it’s — it’s hard, so maddeningly hard right now, and her hands move before she gives them permission, meeting at the buckle of his belt in a questioning drag.

He steps back then, his mouth slipping from her own, leaving her to chase it momentarily, unthinking, and the warm smile he gives her in return is enough to stave off whatever words would’ve come tumbling out of her.

“My lady,” he says, so fondly that she can’t complain, “I — well — first, I feel I should tell you the location of my own heart.”

The breath leaves her lungs, suddenly overcome with —

There was a time when she was younger, she’d been sparring with some local boys, beating them easily, and apparently angering them. She’d found herself pushed — unjustly — into the waters of the pond whose banks they’d been practicing upon, the water an unwelcome and sudden shock.

Trying to get herself free, get her wits about her, her father’s old armor weighing her down and panic rising in her throat, it’s a memory she still sometimes has nightmares about, and this — right now — is _worse_.

That Jaime could kiss her in such a way, hold her in such a way, and then tell her his heart was still with Cersei — she feels tears prick her eyes for the second time that evening.

The horror must register on her face because suddenly Jaime’s hand is tangling with her own, gripping tightly.

“Whatever you’re thinking, please allow me to correct it — my heart, Brienne, belongs to _you_.”

Her jaw unlocks, shoulders sagging, and she can’t respond, not yet. Of all the things she’d ever imagined, that someday she would stand in a room in Winterfell and hear Jaime Lannister profess his affection — his _love_ — had never possibly crossed her mind. How could it have?

Jaime rushes on, his tone lighter, “You think I just go about Westeros handing out Valyrian steel swords and custom-made armor whenever it strikes my fancy? Why, I think the nicest thing I’ve ever gotten Tyrion is, well, truthfully, probably a whore on his nameday sometime or another.”

She gives him an admonishing look and he returns it with a sheepish one. “Perhaps it was a book instead. Let’s call it a book.”

“I prefer the sword,” she says.

“So do I,” he answers. “But — could we — I’m sure there are times where you remove it, however infrequently they might be — bathing, surely? Could — could now be one of those times?”

She glances down at her sword, at the rest of her armor and outfit. “Just the sword?” she says, and there’s teasing in her tone.

“Just the sword,” he says, nodding solemnly. “And, if it pleases my lady, maybe also some of these metal bits?”

It’s unconscionable enough that she’s found herself here, engaged in this, before battle, but it’s beyond the pale that she can’t find it in herself to stop it now. Her life, all of their lives, hanging so precariously in the balance and yet what she finds herself saying is —

“And what will you be removing, Ser Jaime?”

And Jaime, without a moment’s hesitation, answers. “Whatever you want.”

“Shall we go tit for tat?” she says.

He nods.

This, then, is how she finds herself removing items she often doesn’t remove even in slumber if she’s made camp somewhere, almost entirely down to her desire to see Jaime do the same.

It’s slow going at first, the various belts and fastenings of her wardrobe made for their ability to stay on and protect, not to disrobe and _expose_ , but it’s when she realizes Jaime has fallen behind her and is struggling that time truly begins to crawl, slow and warm and sweet.

She moves to help him without discussing it, the bits he’d put on himself and the bits he’d clearly had some manner of help with apparent in how securely they’re fastened.

When he finally stands before her, barefoot, in nothing but a loose shirt and thin trousers, he looks at her expectantly and she makes haste in catching up.

Words had been unneeded for the last while, but she finds herself grasping for them now, under Jaime’s careful eye in less than she’s ever worn in front of any man.

(Except Pod, on accident, once, and they’d both sooner kiss a dragon than bring it up again.)

“And n —”

Jaime’s mouth cuts her off once more, an injustice she would never have born so willingly before, but again she allows it, reveling in the feel of his tongue as it smooths slow and wet against hers.

Her arms wind around him, resting on his shoulders, and his own slip around her midsection, his hand curling lightly into the fabric at the back of her shirt.  
  
They’re pressed so closely together, wearing so little, that she can feel the warmth of him, the softness of his skin and the firmness of his muscles — and...other places.

His hand begins to move, slowly, drifting down her flank until it’s cupping — _caressing_ — her backside, and when he presses her gently forward with it, she rubs against his cock in a way that makes them both groan.

He breathes out a question and though she can’t make it out, she nods. He brings his mouth to her neck, pressing hot, damp kisses against the skin there and her hips start up a rhythm without even being told to do so.

In tandem, they begin shuffling toward the bed, slow, dragging steps that are stop-started by a press of lips, a hand on her breast, countless, wondrous things that make her blood sing and her head swim.

When the backs of her knees touch the edge of the mattress, Jaime stops and rocks back on his heels.

“What do you say we compare scars?” he says, a teasing twinkle in his eye.

“I’ve seen your scars, Jaime.”

He looks puzzled for a moment, but it clears quickly, “Ah, yes, the bath. So if I’ve already seen yours and you’ve already seen mine, there’s really no use in being shy now, is there?”

His hand grips the bottom of his shirt, his arm an exaggerated diagonal across his torso, clearly some trick he’s learned in helping himself get it off, but she’s here now, and can help just as well.

“No, there’s not,” she says, and lifts his shirt over his head with far more boldness than she feels.

He tilts his head expectantly when it drops to the floor and before she can lose her nerve, she tugs her own shirt over her head.

Her chest is small, usually bound by armor, and so she wears no further garments, standing before him with her bare breasts on display.

There’s a voice in her head comparing, wondering, belittling herself, and with a forceful shake of her head, she clears it out. It could be the end soon, for either of them, and Jaime has chosen to spend it here, where she is.

That must count for something. It may very well be everything.

His hand lifts to cup her breast, thumb brushing her nipple as his eyes track the skin of her chest.

She keeps her eyes on his, able to tell where he’s looking by how long his gaze lingers, the length of a scar, the ring of a bruise.

“I didn’t see these...before,” he says, swirling a finger around a cluster of freckles at her ribs.

“Yes, well, I saw _more_ before,” she says, looking pointedly at his trousers with a brazenness that clearly delights him.

“Easy enough to remedy,” and with a quick tug, he’s as naked as his nameday in front of her once more.

She wasn’t going to let him think he had an advantage then, and she isn’t going to let him think that now, dropping the rest of her garments and stepping out of them as quickly as he had done.

“Brienne —” he breathes, but this time it’s her that stops the words with her lips, kissing him as all of his skin, his warm, smooth skin presses against hers.

It’s an awkward jumble of limbs and movements to lying down on the bed, but they manage it, Jaime over top of her, resting between her thighs.

His cock is pressed hard against her and she ruts her hips against him because it feels good, it feels so _good_.

He presses kisses to her mouth, her neck, her cheeks, everywhere he can reach as he meets her advances lazily, as if they had all the time in the world.

And then, as if he’d read her thoughts, he says, “We’ve got time. I’ll make time myself if I need to.”

With that, he slides slowly down her body, stopping to dance his tongue around each of her nipples, sucking lightly in a way that has her bucking against him, but this time without the satisfying ridge of his cock to welcome the movement.

In a moment too long and not nearly long enough, he moves on from her breasts, skipping kisses lightly across the muscles of her abdomen and down to her thighs before nuzzling his nose into the thatch of hair between her legs.

“Is this all right?” he asks, and when she shrugs her shoulders, out of her depth, he raises his eyebrows until she answers him in words.

“Yes, it’s all right,” she says, and she’s pleased to find that there’s fond exasperation in her voice.

They are still them, even now.

With a gentle press of the end of his right arm to her thigh, spreading it further, he uses his left hand to run a thumb through her wetness, dipping it inside of her briefly — too briefly — before his tongue licks the same path.

It’s a clash of feelings all at once, hot and sizzling and so unbelievably magnificent that she cries out before she can help herself.

Jaime pauses and looks up at her, the candlelight casting shadows across her pale skin as she takes in the pleased smile on his lips.

Before she can respond, whether in retort or plea, he moves his mouth back to her, his tongue slipping warm and slick against her, ringing circles in an area that makes her writhe and grip his hair between her hands.

One of his fingers touches her entrance once more, sliding deeper this time, and setting into a steady rhythm that she mimics with her hips as he pushes a second finger inside of her.

It feels as though she’s chasing something, something rising and building and growing in her chest and in her mind, and Jaime begins to move faster, all his movements focused and steady, his _mouth_ and his _fingers_ and suddenly she’s breaking, bucking against him as a strangled shout breaks from her lips.

He shifts back, pressing a hard kiss to the inside of her thigh that leaves a trail of wetness behind, and then he’s moved up the length of her body once more, resting above her on his forearms.

Dipping his head, he drops a second, lighter kiss to her mouth, and then stills, peering down at her with a patience she wouldn’t have thought a man capable of in such circumstances.

She reaches down between them, gripping his cock in her hand loosely — an action she’s rewarded for with a hitched moan from Jaime. She’s out of her depth, but she’s also willing to learn, and she tells him so.

“I could — try and return the favor, if you’d like?”

He shakes his head. “Let’s call that ‘something to live for.’ I have another favor in mind, if you’ll humor me?”

She releases his cock, resting both of her hands on his back, and nods.

He won’t allow the nod this time either, raising his eyebrows once more.

“I’ll humor you,” she snaps, but there’s no sting to it. “Yes, whatever it is, yes.”

“ _Whatever_ it is?” he practically preens.

She rolls her eyes. “Something to live for.”

With a nod of his own, he steadies himself on his right arm, and positions his cock at her entrance with his left.

“Might hurt,” he says, and it’s clear he meant to say it lightly, but his concern shows through.

“I can handle it,” she assures him, with another roll of her eyes.

He pushes in then, a resistance she can feel, a brief bloom of pain, and then he stills above her, fully seated inside of her.

“All right?”

“All right.”

“I’ll just move then, shall I?”

“If you please.”

And it’s this, in a way, that pleases her more than what their bodies are doing, the idle intimacy and banter, an understanding and ease with someone like she’s never had before, and resisted so long with him.

He smiles at her, tipping his forehead to rest tenderly against hers as his hips set into a slow cadence above her.

The wet drag of his cock, the friction of it, his tongue dancing across her neck, sucking and nipping, it’s all so much, and she forces herself to take note of all of it.

There’s the smell of him, sweat and woodsmoke and spice, the warmth and smoothness of his skin, the feel of his hair as she tangles a hand into the back of it, she wants to remember this, for however long they have left, she wants to remember this.

The sound of his breathing in her ear is quickening, shorter pants and quiet moans, and she’s breathing just as heavily, pleading in half-words and gasps as he pushes into her faster and harder and she’s climbing up and up and up and —

— over.

With a sound she’s sure they heard even at the forge, she tumbles over again, Jaime following right behind with a noise they surely heard in Tarth.

His startled gaze finds hers almost immediately. “I didn’t mean to — I meant to — spill myself...elsewhere.”

It takes a moment to understand him, so unaccustomed to matters such as these as she is, but when his meaning becomes clear, she doesn’t find herself bothered.

“If that presents a problem, it’ll mean we survived,” she says, and he drops his forehead to hers once more, his eyes closing in a way that feels like a benediction.

There are more moments then, moments of grace and moments far more unrefined, as they disentangle and redress, but soon they’re seated in the chairs once more. No longer waiting on each other, but on a battle that will determine if this was an ending or a beginning.

In the distance, a horn blows, and she and Jaime rise.


End file.
